1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to feed material processing and, more particularly, is concerned with apparatus and method for converting whole ears of corn into particulate feed material wherein the ears are initially broken into smaller pieces prior to processing thereof.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Corn is the main ingredient in the feed rations of many types of livestock. Conventionally, it is fed to livestock, such as steers and dairy cows, in three different forms: whole ear, coarse particles, or fine particles. The whole ear form is the least desirable of the three from the standpoint of nutritional value to the animal. Consequently, conventional feed mixtures which utilize the entire corn ear are of two general types: ones that include corn kernels which have been ground into minute particles along with the ground cobs, or others that include cobs which have not been ground but rather are cracked or crushed so that they are in small pieces about the size of the corn kernels which are retained in their whole condition.
The drawbacks of these two conventional feed mixtures have been recognized in the prior art, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,530,913 to Charles M. Kline et al. This patent discloses a corn processor intended to produce a more nutritionally-desirable mixture of the parts of the corn ear. It proposed to provide a uniform and substantially homogeneous mixture of (1) cobs and any husks remaining upon the ears of corn which have been reduced by the processor to a predetermined size readily consumable by livestock, and (2) kernels of corn which have been cracked only a very limited amount. Such a mixture is more desirable in that the cracked kernels afford maximum nutritional value to livestock while the ground cobs and husks provide needed roughage and some extra, though admittedly, limited, nutritional value.
However, the corn processor of the Kline et al patent never became a commercially-available machine. While it may have been capable of producing the above-described, more nutritionally-desirable mixture of ear corn parts, it apparently failed to do so on an economically-viable basis. One likely explanation for the corn processor's failure would seem to be that it required a relatively high power input to achieve a commercially-acceptable rate of ear corn throughput in converting the ears of corn to the desired particulate feed material. High power usage would seem to be demanded to operate the components of the corn processor in at least three instances. First, a rotatable sheller unit adapted to handle whole ears of corn, as described and illustrated in the patent, must be of a substantial length and size, and hence requires high torque input for satisfactory operation. Second, because the sheller unit separates kernels from the cobs of whole ears, reduction of the cobs from their initial whole size to desired final particle size apparently has to be carried out in two stages, using two separate grinding units. Third, the over-sized sheller unit needed to process whole ears results in a mismatch with the small size of the cracking unit capable of handling the separated kernels. Thus, an additional powered auger is needed for the sole purpose of feeding kernels discharged from along the long screen of the sheller unit to the location of the much shorter cracking unit.
Consequently, the need still remains for a corn ear processing or converting technique which will produce the desired, nutritionally-improved mixture of the parts of the ear of corn on an economical, cost-effective and commercially-viable basis.